Content Categorized Under ‘Alumni’

Although I was born in New York, I have grown up in Hawaii since the age of 6 and proudly consider it to be my home. Looking back, I realize that my upbringing within the culture of Hawaii combined with my education at UH Manoa, has played an incredibly large role in the development of my appreciation for cultural diversity, nature, art, and the sciences.

In 2005, while I was writing the last bits of my dissertation at UH, a job offer from the Smithsonian arrived in my email inbox. It was an opportunity to continue to do research on invasive marine species, work with some of the top people in the field of invasion biology, and help to develop a laboratory based in the San Fransisco Bay Area.

The opportunity to see many of the animals in their native environment, in addition to dissecting them, was an opportunity that few others around the world would get, and looking back at my time at UH, it is one of the unique opportunities that enhanced my education the most.

There is something incredibly satisfying in helping others achieve their goals whether it be learning how to make a layup in basketball, figuring out the SN1 and SN2 substitution mechanisms of organic chemistry, or gaining admittance to medical school.

On December 24, 1999, a car accident left my life hanging by a thread. My stint in the trauma ICU sparked my interest in medicine. After taking a semester off to recuperate, I returned to UH Mānoa to receive my BA in Biology through the College of Natural Sciences.